Digital BW, The Print

Answer: If you are shooting with any digital camera, you should be 
capturing images in color, regardless of the output. There is 
absolutely no advantages to using "Monochrome Mode" on digital 
cameras.
WHY: The majority of digital cameras, reflective scanners and some 
film scanners, scan in only one color to obtain a digitized black 
and white image from the original color photo. Green is the color 
used due to overall balance and detail. Red generally contains 
highlights and Blue contains much of the noise and artifacts, and 
therefore both are not used. As a result you have not captured all 
of the tonal information, infact you only got 1/3 of the info.

If digital cameras captured in "Monochrome Mode" utilizing three 
color channels, you still would not want to utilize this function 
(At least not all the time). Because this would be the equivelant of 
limiting yourself to one type of Black & White film. The camera 
would be generating the monochrome image based on predetermined 
ratios of Red, Green, and Blue color information. This is the same 
as using the Photoshop conversion to Grayscale(Image>Mode>Grayscale) 
which converts your RGB image to Grayscale based on the following 
calculations(Approx):Red=43 Green=32 Blue=25
This often produces an excellant image, however, not always! And you 
have no say over the process. It would be like only shooting Kodak T-
Max 100 without any filters...Always.

By capturing the image in color, you have captured all of the color 
and tonal information nessesary to create a monochrome image with 
any characteristics you want, based on the method of conversion you 
choose (I currently have 8 PS actions for different methods of 
converting).

Basically, "Monochrome Mode" is provided as a feature for marketing 
purposes. This mode was never expected to be utilized for fine 
photography, nor should it.

Best Regards,
cr


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., bob geoghegan 
<bobgeo@d...> wrote:
> This may border on OT, but here goes...
> 
> I'm looking for suggestions on testing a digital camera's BW mode 
against 
> its color mode for BW output.  The question is: how does shooting 
in BW 
> mode compare to shooting in color & converting later?  Converting 
later has 
> the advantage of applying contrast filters after the fact.  Would 
BW mode 
> be likely to offer advantages in, say, sharpness or dynamic 
range?  How 
> would one test that?  In particular, what sort of test target 
would be best 
> for sharpness?  Maybe something with saturated reds, greens & 
blues 
> bordering each other to look for fringing.
> 
> The camera in question is a Canon G2.  It locks some functions 
in 'auto' 
> for BW mode -- e.g., exposure is program mode only.  At least the 
ISO 
> setting hold when switching to BW.  Low compression .jpg is the 
top quality 
> save option in BW where Color includes a RAW ccd output losslessly 
> compressed (about 2x the BW .jpg size).
> 
> Regards,
> Bob G